


Reedtale

by nitritre



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, No Beta, Or do they?, Reader Is Not Frisk (Undertale), Suicide Attempt, Too Many Footnotes, death mention, frisk makes a minor appearance, reader is not okay, tags to be added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:14:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29848968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitritre/pseuds/nitritre
Summary: A fairly dark tale, but it gets better.Borrow the eyes of Reed, a depressed security guard, as she falls Underground and settles among monsters. What adventures will she live? Will she notice the glitches in the timeline before it's too late? Read and find out.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Reedtale

**Author's Note:**

> While officially Reed has a name, an appearance, and a background, feel free to download and edit the story to fit your own. This is a customizable story. I wrote her a certain way because the character knocked on my door and stayed, but feel free to change her as you see fit.

The night is clear. Good ol’ Mount Doom and Gloom is as dark and gloomy and depressing as ever. Your car is parked as neatly as you could manage. You spare a guilty thought for your mother, who will have to come and collect your car. It can’t be helped. It’s better this way.

  
The mountain is eerily silent as you slowly make your way to the top. You’re pretty sure night isn’t supposed to be that silent. Where are the animals? The wind? Literally anything that’s supposed to move and make noise? Now you can see why there are so many stories about this place: it does feel like something suspicious is going on. Not that it matters. If there really are monsters, it only means that you will be recycled1 more quickly.

  
You finally arrive to your destination: the deep, dark hole on top of Mount Ebott. The one that creeps out most people and that you’ve been trying to go to for a while now, without success until today. You’re hoping the rumors are at least partly true. Those things don’t usually come from nowhere, so you’re not too worried.  
You stare at the hole for a long, long time. How long will it take? No one is quite sure just how deep it really is. Everyone who comes up here to try and measure it seems to get a different figure. Footsteps. You turn towards whoever followed you, and your heart sinks.

  
It’s a kid. A little kid. You can’t see if it’s a little gal or a little guy, and you don’t particularly care. The moonlight lets you see a small, tired kid with shabby clothes and an unkempt bob of dark hair. Not that you look too good either. The kid is clearly here for the same reason as you are.

  
Fuck.

  
“Hey.”

  
The kid stares. They clearly heard you, but don’t respond. Can’t blame them. You take a few steps back from the hole, kneel in front of the little one, and do your best to tone down your resting bitch face. You look tall and mean, especially for a girl. Might make them more comfortable if you try to look as nonthreatening as possible. You get to their level, making sure to leave more than enough space between the two of you to avoid spooking them.  
“Whatcha doing out here, kid? It’s late. Not the best time to visit.”

  
Okay, that sounded stupid, but… well, you can’t let a child do that. There has to be something to do. A way to talk them out of it. Think. What would she say in your place?

  
The kid points to their mouth and shakes their head. Oh. Can’t talk, huh? Well, you can’t sign, so your phone will have to do. You fish it from your pocket and unlock it without caring that the kid can see your code. Not like you’re going to need it much longer, they might as well take it. Less wasteful that way.

  
“Here. Now we can talk.”

  
_Why?_

  
You shrug.

  
“Why not?”

  
_Are you going to stop me?_

  
“Yes.”

  
_You’re here to jump too._

  
You sigh and sit, then pat the ground next to you. Luckily, it isn’t damp. Your last conversation will be moderately comfortable. How nice.

  
“I’m an adult. How old are you? Eight?”

  
_I’m 10._

  
“Wow, so grown up,” you deadpan. “Guess I’ll get out of your way then.”

  
The kid glares. Good. You want them thinking about something that isn’t jumping down the hole. They’re too young to be considering that. They should be at home, preparing for bed, if not asleep already.

  
“I’m gonna take a wild guess and say your parents or guardians aren’t ideal. That sucks, kid, but that’s no reason to jump.”

  
The kid types furiously:

  
_You don’t know anything about me!_

  
“Doesn’t matter. You’re a kid. I’ll drag you down to CPS or whatever if I need to.”

  
You probably wouldn’t even notice the weight. The kid looks like a strong gust of wind might pick them up and make them fly. Not much meat on those small bones. If you had met them at any other time, you might have come down with them to have words with their guardians. Looking intimidating and even threatening is kind of your thing, and you aren’t above putting it to good use.

  
_Why do you even care?_

  
“Told you. You’re a kid. It’s just not right.”

  
An idea strikes you. There should be about 25 dollars in your phone case. An old habit instilled by your mother. Maybe bribing the kid could work?

  
“Hey, you know what? There’s like twenty bucks in the phone case. If you walk back into town, you can get yourself something. But only if you don’t come back here, okay? And… there’s someone who might be able to help you too,” you ramble. “She’s probably asleep at this hour, but if you call tomorrow morning...”

  
You hadn’t spoken that much in a while, and you trail off, feeling awkward. The kid looks at you for a long time without writing a word, then nods slowly. You show them your code again, making sure they can use the phone, and then point out the right number. If you know your friend, and you know you do, she’ll move heaven and earth to help that poor kid. You send her a text anyway, short and maybe a bit cryptic, just to make sure.  
“So. You’ll call her tomorrow. Promise?”

  
_Promise._

  
“Good. Now go get yourself something. There should still be a store open at this hour, if you’re quick.”  
_What about you?_

  
You smile as reassuringly as you can at the kid, pushing aside the little voice in your head calling you a liar and a hypocrite. To be fair, you are a grown ass adult. What you do is no one’s business but your own.  
“Don’t worry about me. I’m just here to think.”

  
They don’t look too convinced, but they let it go. You’re grateful for that. Then they go for a quick hug, and you tense, surprised. People don’t do that. They usually steer clear. You aren’t used to being touched outside of training.

  
_Sorry. And thanks._

  
The kid gets up and walks away. You watch them until you can’t see them anymore, and then you get up yourself. You don’t bother to dust your pants before taking a step towards the hole. And then another. And another yet. You can’t take your eyes away from the deep, inky blackness. You’re so tired. It’s time to get some rest2.  
You take another step. There’s no solid ground under your foot. You lose balance, and you fall. You close your eyes and hope it will be quick.

*

Your first hint that something is not going as planned is that your fall seems to last much, much longer than the maybe forty seconds you expected from your internet-assisted calculations. Mount Ebott’s height is respectable, but not that high: you should have hit the ground by now, unless for some reason the hole is deeper than the mount is tall. At some point during the fall, you flipped, so you are facing towards the entrance, but you haven’t been able to see the sky in a while. You’re surrounded by utter blackness: you’re completely blind. You have no idea what’s happening. There could be anything in the darkness, and you wouldn’t see it coming. Which was kind of the point, but is still unnerving.

  
The whole thing feels surreal: you caught a glimpse of a door near the top. A door, of all things. Who made a door in a mountain? And why? It was open, but there was nothing behind it. Why does it feel like you’re in Alice in Wonderland? That’s not how it was supposed to go. You don’t like it.

  
Then somehow your fall gets slower and slower. You like that even less. You’re not too good at physics, but you know that’s not supposed to happen. This is unnatural. Unnatural and really, really inconvenient.

  
You feel something soft against your back, and then you’re no longer falling. You lie on the ground, defeated. That’s probably karma for talking the kid out of doing exactly that. Didn’t let them die, so you don’t get to either. No good deed goes unpunished and all that shit.

  
You just lie on the ground without moving. There’s still plan B, waiting for the big bad monsters of Mount Ebott to find you and eat you. If there’s some weird magic stuff that keeps people from falling to their death, maybe it’s because the monsters like their food not splattered on the ground. You can work with that. It’s gonna be extremely painful and unpleasant, but…

  
“Howdy!”

  
You startle and look up, but don’t see anyone. Which is strange, since there’s some magical light coming from who knows where, illuminating your surroundings and allowing you to see that there’s no one around. Just flowers. Golden flowers. Most of which are under you, except that one a bit further… Wait, it has a face?  
You are officially hallucinating. Great. Hopefully that’s just your body doing its thing so you’re distracted from the agony of going from human to blood splatters on the floor.

  
“Huh, hello.”

  
“I’m Flowey. Flowey the flower,” the smiling golden flower says.

  
So monsters do exist. Your grandma was right, after all. You’re hoping that the flower isn’t as nice as it seems and that unlike the average surface plant, it eats living people.

  
“Nice to meet you. I’m Reed the human,” you answer, because it might as well happen.

  
“Hmm… You’re new to the Underground, aren’tcha? Golly, you must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here!”

  
It pauses. You don’t move at all, staring placidly at it. The flower looks a bit unnerved, but carries on in a bright tone:

  
“I guess little old me will have to do. Ready? Here we go!”

  
And then things get really, really weird. You’re still on the patch of flowers, but also not. There’s a mud-colored, cartoonish heart in a box in front of you. Except there’s also a body on a bed of flowers behind you. The hue of the heart seems to be subtly shifting, sometimes lighter and sometimes darker. Apart from breathing, the body is completely still. It’s so strange to be in two different places at once.

  
“See that heart? That is your soul, the very culmination of your being!”

  
Huh. It’s fitting, somehow. Your soul is as dull and mediocre as the rest of you3.

  
“Your soul starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV. What’s LV stand for? Why, LOVE, of course!”

  
Yeah, not interested. You open your mouth to say so, but the flower cuts you off.

  
“You want some LOVE, don’t you? Don’t worry, I’ll share some with you!”

  
“Actually...”

  
The flower winks, somewhat disturbingly, and keeps talking. Might as well hear it out, you guess. It’s not like you have anything better to do.

  
“Down here, LOVE is shared through… little white… ‘friendliness pellets.’”

  
That is the most obvious bullshit you’ve ever been told, and you’ve heard a lot of bullshit in your short life. You’re relieved: seems like you might actually die today.

  
“Are you ready? Move around! Get as many as you can!”

  
Your body nods. Your heart moves towards the ‘friendliness pellets.’ And then you wince: it smarts a bit. Not as much as falling to your death would have hurt, but you still have a preservation instinct and can’t help but recoil a little. The flower suddenly looks a lot less friendly. Called it.

  
“You idiot. In this world, it’s kill or BE killed. Why would anyone pass up an opportunity like this!?”

  
A circle of white bullets surrounds your little cartoonish heart. You watch with some interest. That’s kind of cool, really. Not the way you thought you would go, but probably a lot better, all things considered.

  
“Die.”

  
Neither your body nor your heart move. The flower cackles like a maniac, and you can’t be bothered to care. Go for it, little buddy. Just make it quick. The bullets get closer and closer, until suddenly, the mild pain in your body just disappears, along with the circle. The flower doesn’t look too pleased, and then gets hit by a fireball. What the hell?!

  
You look up and see a towering, humanoid goat in a purple robe looking at you with concern. You don’t know how to react, so you don’t.

  
“What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth…”

  
You look at the nice goat, dismayed. She sounds so nice and maternal, which would have been really comforting, if not for the fact that you had been looking forward to dying. But the monster doesn’t seem to understand why you look so unhappy.

  
“Ah, do not be afraid, my child. I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins. I pass through this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down. You are the first human to come here in a long time.”

  
Now that’s a surprise. You know for a fact that there’s an average of twenty people disappearing around Mount Ebott every year. Some of them had to end up down here. Right?

  
“Can you stand?”

  
You nod and sit up. She seems nice, but maybe she’s like the flower? Or like a witch from a fairy tale, with an oven in her home to roast naive travelers and lost children. Goats are herbivores, but this is not a goat, just a goat-like monster. Maybe she’s a meat-eater.

  
At this point, you’re starting to think that it’s not going to happen, but you have nothing to lose.

  
“Come! I will guide you through the catacombs. This way.”

  
You follow her through a strange, purple door. The next room is well-lit, with red leaves on the ground and two small, symmetrical flights of stairs. There’s another smaller, less ornate door to go through. You might have examined the place on your own, but your guide seems to want to go on. Maybe she’s afraid you’ll get attacked by another crazy flower if you linger.

  
“Welcome to your new home, innocent one. Allow me to educate you in the operation of the Ruins.”

  
It’s getting a bit weird, but why not. Just how old is Toriel, exactly? You sometimes get told you look a couple of years younger than you are, but still, you don’t look like a child, and you’re definitely not child-sized. Then again, she is much, much taller than you are. You’d estimate her at well past 9 feet. She steps on four gray switches on the ground, and then activates a yellow one on the wall. The wall suddenly opens, revealing that it is actually a door. You frown: the door can be opened by a puzzle? And a simple one, at that? Now that’s just poor security.

  
“The Ruins are full of puzzles,” Toriel explains. “Ancient fusions between diversions and door keys. One must solve them to move from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them.”

  
You nod, and the goat woman smiles. In the next room, she turns to you again.

  
“To make progress here, you will need to trigger several switches. Do not worry, I have labeled the ones that you need to flip.”

  
You take a look at the wall, a bit disappointed that you don’t get to try the puzzle on your own, then you dutifully flip the switches. Toriel beams at you, and you can’t help but to feel a bit pleased. It reminds you of Coach a bit.

  
“Splendid! I am proud of you, little one. Let us move to the next room.”

  
Wow, you haven’t been called little in… well, since puberty. People tend to be small in Ebott, and you have at least a good few inches on most of them.

  
“As a human living in the Underground, monsters may attack you.”

  
Nice. You try not to react at the news: you wouldn’t want to worry the nice woman. You’ll have to give her the slip and walk around until it happens.

  
“You will need to be prepared for this situation. However, worry not! The process is simple. When you encounter a monster, you will enter a fight. While you are in a fight, strike up a friendly conversation.”

  
You feel the urge to snort, but you listen to the rest of the explanation. You wouldn’t want to be rude. Not to mention that you’re neither at work nor training, and that it would be frowned upon to act as if you were.

  
“Stall for time. I will come to resolve the conflict. Practice talking to the dummy.”

  
Toriel steps before the door and looks at you with an encouraging smile. The dummy doesn’t move. It’s old, its colors faded, and looks like it has seen better days. You feel a bit foolish, and clear your throat. Suddenly, the heart and the box are back.

  
“Hello. I’m Reed. Reed the human. Nice to meet you, I guess?”

  
The dummy doesn’t answer. Not that you expected it to. You glance at Toriel, who smiles encouragingly.

  
“I’m new in the Underground. Just… fell down,” you carry on. “It’s my first time meeting a monster. Have you met a human before me?”

  
The dummy almost looks like it’s staring at you. Weird. You talk for maybe a minute before the box disappears and Toriel is satisfied. She praises you, and you can’t help but smile at the warm monster. She’s almost as nice as… You cut off the thought. This isn’t the time. You won’t see her again.

  
“The next room awaits.”

  
And you follow her to a mostly empty room. Purple floor, purple walls with some vines, some sort of light trail on the ground, the routine. Toriel looks at you with a somewhat worried look. What’s wrong?

  
“There is another puzzle in this room… I wonder if you can solve it?”

  
You don’t know if you can, and you’ve talked more today than you have in months or maybe even years, so you follow her in silence. Without warning, the heart and the box reappear. In front of you is a small frog who doesn’t look too happy.

  
Toriel is too close for you to get your hopes up, so you get as close to its eye level as you can and try to smile at the monster:

  
“Hello there. Are you mad I didn’t say that earlier? I’m sorry, I frogot.”

  
The pun is pretty bad, but the small amphibian seems flattered. Then the goat woman notices you’re behind and glares at the small monster, who gets intimidated and hops away. You quietly thank her and you both carry on. She stops before a field of spikes? Okay, now they have your attention. That’s better security, especially if…

  
“This is the puzzle, but… here, take my hand for a moment,” the monster requires.

  
You hold out your hand. It disappears in Toriel’s big, warm, fuzzy paw. She walks you through the spikes, in a pattern that looks very similar to the light purple trail in the first part of the room. While they look intimidating, the lightest step reveals that they are just a decoy, and not even that sharp. The goat woman is barefoot, and she doesn’t even seem to notice the spikes under her feet. Arrived at the other end, she turns to you with a serious face.

  
“Puzzles seem a little too dangerous for now.”

  
You’re not sure whether to feel annoyed at being treated like a child or pleased at being protected for once, so you don’t react at all. The next room is long and empty, with another light purple trail. You’re not sure you can memorize a trail that long if needed.

  
“You have done excellently thus far, my child,” Toriel smiles at you. “However… I have a difficult request to ask of you.”

  
She has your entire attention. What kind of request? Is it risky? Or is it something that will require some serious thinking? You don’t think it would be something physical, she’s probably stronger than you, but if she needs help with something…

  
“I would like you to walk to the end of the room by yourself.”

  
Oh.

  
“Forgive me for this,” she says before taking off at a speed that you wouldn’t have expected from someone her size. Or someone bipedal at all, really. There’s something unnatural about the way she seems to go faster and faster.

  
She quickly disappears in the distance. You would stare, but she gave you a task, and as simple as it is, you would like to please the nice woman. You walk at a normal pace, trying to remember the exact shape of the light trail just in case. You don’t have your phone to help you, but you don’t regret it. The kid needs it more than you do anyway. The room stretches and stretches for miles, even longer than it looked from the entrance. You suspect that some sort of magic is at play.

  
After a solid hour of walking4, you finally arrive at the other end, near a strange white column that looks out of place. You frown and examine it. It’s really close to the exit, Toriel probably won’t mind if you take a moment to look at it. Wait a minute, you can hear something behind it. There’s someone hiding behind the pillar, isn’t there? You take a few steps and sure enough, Toriel is right here.

  
“Greetings, my child. Do not worry, I did not leave you. I was merely behind this pillar the whole time.”

  
She seems really patient. Or maybe there’s a trick to this room, who knows? You wouldn’t be surprised. The puzzles looked really simple so far, but there has to be something more to them.

  
“Thank you for trusting me. However, there was an important reason for this exercise… to test your independence. I must attend to some business, and you must stay alone for a while. Please remain here.”

  
You nod. That’s nothing new. You don’t remember a time when you hadn’t had to stay alone at home for a while and entertain yourself while everyone else was away. Of course, you don’t intend to stay in the room, but there’s no need for her to know that.

  
“It’s dangerous to explore by yourself. I have an idea. I will give you a cell phone. If you have a need for anything, just call. Be good, alright?”

  
You nod again and offer a small smile. The monster smiles back, hands you an old cell phone, and leaves. You wait for a couple of minutes to make sure she gets far enough for your plan to work, and then you step into the next room. Your phone rings.

  
“Hello? This is Toriel. You have not left the room, have you?”

  
Oops. Busted. You want to apologize, but she keeps talking:

  
“There are a few puzzles ahead that I have yet to explain. It would be dangerous to try to solve them yourself.”

  
That’s only making them sound more tempting, but you can’t exactly say so out loud. Plus from what you’ve seen so far, the puzzles are really simple and mostly harmless. They’re, well, somewhat interesting. There’s always a way out, and the way out is easy to figure out. You’ve ignored the signs so far, but you think they might even come with instructions. It’s unlikely that you have anything to fear from them.

  
“Be good, alright?”

  
She hangs up. You feel a bit guilty, but you carry on with your plan. Then you notice another small frog looking at you. It croaks and waves at you to come over. You sit in front of it and watch it, curious. How does it expect to communicate with you? You have a phone, but it can’t text, and you don’t have anything else on you right now. Apart from your clothes, but you’re reasonably sure they don’t come with a magical translator. And then a voice resonates through your chest, and if you concentrate, you can see your little cartoonish heart vibrate:

  
_Excuse me, human. I have some advice for you about battling monsters._

  
You gape for a second. You can hear it croak but you can also hear a voice in your strange little heart, which doesn’t come out but somehow hears and translates for you. This is officially the strangest day of your life.

  
_If you ACT a certain way or FIGHT until you almost defeat them… They might not want to battle you anymore. If a monster does not want to fight you, please… Use some MERCY, human. _

  
You nod. The monster seems pleased and stops talking. Still bewildered, you take a last look at the small white frog, and then gets up to explore. Monsters will probably find you on their own. You’re big and you’re making an effort not to walk silently, so you’re noticeable.

  
You check the room behind the frog. There’s a bowl with candy, and a sign saying to only take one. You almost consider not taking any, but you are a bit curious about monster candy, so you end up slipping one into your right pocket. You walk out and see a strange, flickering light. You go take a look. Is it a monster? Doesn’t seem like it. You touch it. Nothing happens. Well, your soul vibrates a bit, but that’s it. You shrug and keep walking. It’s probably not that important anyway.

  
Another frog monster hops in, and you’re once again fighting. Well, ‘fighting’, really. You wave at the small monster and crouch so it can reach you more easily. You get the feeling that it expects you to do something. Your little cartoon heart feels like it’s bursting with energy. Well? Maybe you’re not supposed to fight with your body. Maybe the heart is supposed to be doing the hard work. You close your eyes and concentrate on it.

  
Now you’re only in one place. You can feel your body behind your heart, still and breathing quietly. You can feel your options. Fighting is out: you don’t want to hurt the poor frog. You don’t have anything in your pockets besides candy, and you don’t feel like escaping. So you’ll have to talk to the monster.

  
“Nice to meet you,” you say, because you have no better idea.

  
The frog monster blushes deeply, and to your surprise, a smaller white frog appears in the box. It jumps and collides with you. It smarts a bit. You can see a yellow bar somewhere in your peripheral vision. It got a bit red when the second frog hit you. Maybe it’s your health bar or something. You squint, and suddenly you can see numbers. 149/150. Oh. It’s going to take a while, isn’t it? Good thing you’re patient.

  
When it’s your turn, you talk. Flies and small frogs attack you when it’s its turn. The cycle repeats countless times. The frog looks a bit tired. Your body is sore, and if you had been talking with your mouth your throat would be feeling drier than a desert from all the talking you’ve been doing. You only have a sliver of yellow left in your health bar now. The end is near.

  
You get hit one more time. There’s no more yellow left. Everything gets dark…

And then you wake up in an empty black room. Your body is nowhere to be seen: it’s just you, the little mud-colored heart, and just like in the fight, you know that your options are limited.

CONTINUE

RESET

You somehow know what those options entail, and you feel like crying. Except you can’t cry. You literally can’t. Even in your body, you can only emit choked up noises, but no tears will ever show up, and you’re not in your body right now. You couldn’t cry even if you tried.

  
You’ve always been a weirdo, and you have now officially been updated to outright freak. Immortal freak, even. You choose to continue and you’re back in your body, in the room with the frog, a bit earlier than you left it.  
You break down laughing. You sound unhinged and the frog hops away, clearly frightened by the mad human losing it in the middle of the room. You keep laughing too hard for too long. You’re shaking on the floor. Your guts hurt. You can’t breathe. You look like an absolute mess, even worse than you usually do.

  
You can’t be bothered to care. The world is unfair and you keep laughing.

  
You die another three times before you resign yourself to your fate. You won’t kill it, and it can’t kill you, so you spare the little frog. It takes a grand total of eleven deaths by spikes, drowning, and various monsters before you entirely give up on the idea.

  
You go through rooms and puzzles, you answer Toriel’s calls, you talk to monsters, and you try not to scare anyone. The latter is easier than it sounds, because monsters are surprisingly nice. They don’t seem to care that you’re big, mean-looking, and towering over all of them: most of them are just excited to meet someone new. Some of them challenge you to fight precisely because they’re so excited. Others because you look like a worthy opponent. The ones who killed you clearly had no idea what they were doing: you talk to a Loox who you are fairly sure killed you twice, and once calmed down, he’s pretty much like a puppy. A weird-looking, one-eyed puppy that can use magic and talk. Or maybe you should say a nice alien? But he’s from Earth, like you. Sure, the Earth is a lot more hollow than you thought it was, but as different as he looks, he’s still an Earthling like you. They all are.

  
You’ve never felt so at ease. It’s almost unnerving: here, you’re not scary. You’re not even that out of the ordinary. Most of them don’t even realize you are a human, and you carefully avoid cluing in the monsters who do ask what you are.

  
A vegetoid offers you the best soup you’ve ever tasted, and it smiles in delight when you sincerely compliment it. You see other, stranger monsters, some of which even want to be picked on for some unfathomable reason. You’re starting to feel like you’re in a tamer version of Alice in Wonderland. Here people are weird, but the rules make sense. Sort of. You still have no idea how you can be both a heart (a soul?) and a person with a body, or why some monsters give you gold coins after the end of a fight. You meet a sweet but really shy ghost, and you ask:

  
“How?”

  
“what do you mean?”

  
“How are you… here?” you ask while gesturing helplessly at their body. “What are you made of? How can you see, and talk, and everything?”

  
“oh…”

  
You realize that might have been rude and you rush to add:

  
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, I’ve just never met a ghost before and I.. was curious.”

  
“it’s okay. i don’t really know either, i’m just… made of magic. like everyone else. but you’re a human, so you’re… you’re physical and you wouldn’t know about that… oh… i’m sorry…”

  
And the ghost disappears before you get a chance to ask more potentially rude questions. You meet them later, lying on the floor, and just hang out with them in comfortable silence until they remember they can leave. You don’t judge. You regularly do pretty stupid stuff too. And your people skills are worse than theirs.

  
It doesn’t take you too long to get to a house at the end of the Ruins. It’s probably Toriel’s, from what you gathered from talking to the monsters in the Ruins. A familiar humanoid goat gets out of it, looking concerned.

  
“Oh dear, that took longer than I thought it would.”

  
Then she notices you. You try not to look too guilty: she did tell you to stay put, and you didn’t listen. Then again, it’s been a while, so you could say you got impatient. And, well, you did die, but it was nothing permanent. Everything turned out alright in the end, so it should be okay. Probably. Maybe. You hope so.

  
“How did you get here, my child? Are you hurt?”

  
You look down at your arms. You got hit a couple of times. Nothing major, but there’s a pretty impressive bruise developing on your left arm. It looks bad, but it doesn’t really hurt.

  
“Who did this to you? You will get an apology,” she promises with a dark look. “I should not have left you alone for so long. It was irresponsible to try to surprise you like this. Err… Well, I suppose I cannot hide it any longer. Come, small one!”

  
You follow her to the house, your throat suspiciously tight.

  1. I meant that as a euphemism but now I’m thinking that it might be interpreted as “I’m trash”. Both interpretations are valid but one in particular is both depressing and completely in-character. [ ▲ ]
  2. Please don't do that. [ ▲ ]
  3. Self-esteem issues. Guess who needs a self-love crash course? GUESS WHO’S GONNA GET A SELF-LOVE CRASH COURSE? (I mean I might do that. Not sure. It’s definitely a possibility.) [ ▲ ]


  * Time in video games is weird. It’s not canon but there’s nothing in canon about the time everything really takes. Because saving/killing an entire species in one day is a bit… unrealistic. [ ▲ ]



**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and reviews feed your authors. Feel free to leave either! Constructive criticism in particular is welcome. If you want to beta the story, feel free to send me a message on tumblr at nitritre or at nitritre@gmail.com.


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